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that."
    "Casually," cautioned Wickham.
    "Casually," confirmed Miles. "But what has Lord Vaughn to do with the Black Tulip?"
    "Lord Vaughn," Wickham said simply, "is the employer of our murdered agent."
    "Ah."
    "Vaughn," continued Wickham, "is recently returned to London after an extended stay on the Continent. A stay of ten years, to be precise."
    Miles engaged in a bit of mental math. "Just about the time the Black Tulip began operations."
    Wickham didn't waste time acknowledging the obvious. "You move in the same circles. Watch him. I don't need to tell you how to go about it, Dorrington. I want a full report by this time next week."
    Miles looked squarely at Wickham. "You'll have it."
    "Good luck, Dorrington." Wickham began shuffling papers, a clear sign that the interview had come to a close. Miles levered himself out of the chair, pulling on his gloves as he strode to the door. "I expect to see you this time next Monday."
    "I'll be here." Miles gave his hat an exuberant twirl before clapping it firmly onto his unruly blond hair. Pausing in the doorway, he grinned at his superior. "With flowers."
    * * *

Chapter Four
    "The Black Tulip?"
    Colin grinned. "Somewhat unoriginal, I admit. But what can you expect from a crazed French spy?"
    "Isn't there a Dumas novel by that name?"
    Colin considered. "I don't believe they're related. Besides, Dumas came later."
    "I wasn't suggesting that Dumas was the Black Tulip," I protested.
    "Dumas' father was a Napoleonic soldier," Colin pronounced with an authoritative wag of his finger, but spoiled the effect by adding, "Or perhaps it was his grandfather. One of them, at any rate."
    I shook my head regretfully. "It's too good a theory to be true."
    I was sitting in the kitchen of Selwick Hall, at a long, scarred wooden table that looked like it had once been victim to beefy-armed cooks bearing cleavers, while Colin poked a spoon into a gooey mass on the stove that he promised was rapidly cooking its way towards being dinner. Despite the well-worn flagstones covering the floor, the kitchen appliances looked as though they had been modernized at some point in the past two decades. They had begun life as that ugly mustard yellow so incomprehensibly beloved of kitchen designers, but had faded with time and use to a subdued beige.
    It wasn't a designer's showcase of a kitchen. Aside from one rather dispirited pot of basil perched on the windowsill, there were no hanging plants, no gleaming copper pots, no color-coordinated jars of inedible pasta, no artistically arranged bunches of herbs poised to whack the unwary visitor on the head. Instead, it had the cozy air of a room that someone actually lives in. The walls had been painted a cheery, very un-mustardy yellow. Blue and white mugs hung from a rack above the sink; a well-used electric kettle stood next to a battered brown teapot with a frayed blue cozy; and brightly patterned yellow and blue drapes framed the room's two windows. The refrigerator made that comfortable humming noise known to refrigerators around the world, as soothing as a cat's purr.
    A fall of ivy half-blocked the window over the sink, draping artistically down one side. Through the other, the dim twilight tended to obscure more than it revealed, that misty time of day when one can imagine ghost ships sailing endlessly through the Bermuda Triangle or phantom soldiers re-fighting long-ago battles on deserted heaths.
    Clearly, I had been spending too much time cooped up in the library. Phantom soldiers, indeed!
    All the same… Twisting to face Colin, I leaned my elbows against the back of my chair and asked, "Does Selwick Hall have any ghosts?"
    Colin paused mid-stir, casting me a glance of unameliorated amusement. "Ghosts?"
    "You know, ghastly specters, headless horsemen, that sort of thing."
    "Right. I'm afraid we're rather short on those at the moment, but if you would like to go next door, I hear Don well Abbey has a few phantom monks to let."
    "I didn't realize they were